Movie Reviews, Mini. / Snehith Kumbla

Friday, 11 August 2017

A Wednesday does a hypnotic audience grip in its final act. The point it makes is instantly powerful and debatable.The first hour though is an irritating mix of cliches, jarring background music, and some unintentionally laughable dialogue. The pace slackens in bringing various characters to the mix. The screenplay needed a serious fast forward for breathless, memorable impact. Naseeruddin Shah's excellent portrayal of the main protagonist binds us. So does Anupam Kher's restrained act. Jimmy Shergill's angry cop needed meat and reason. Though A Wednesday doesn't build up craftily, it hits the ground running, making it flawed, but solid entertainment.

Why do we visit the movies so often? Everyone has their reasons. Sometimes, we all yearn for a sense of disbelief and an enlarged, impossible perspective. Like, who wouldn't want to die in epic style, with millions of fellow earthlings? Watch a whole island turn into a mammoth volcano and jump in manic glee. Scream like forever, falling into those mega earthquake cracks. Nobody dies the usual way in a template-ridden, mega budget, end of the world (yes again and again!) Hollywood disaster movie 2012. Predictably, the lead characters survive to save the day. So it is left to the VFX team (hail the visual effects people!) to make it all fun and convincing, even as cities fall apart and world-famous monuments are reduced to rubble. The loud soundtrack does the rest.Don't look for a story, expect emotional pep talk on universal brotherhood and have fun. 2012 is a movie to be enjoyed and forgotten, to the unhealthy crunch of a popcorn tub and in dreading a possible asteroid attack.

Filled with characters going blah-blah-blah, The Social Network could so easily be a bore of a movie. After all, this is about the real and alleged founders of Facebook, the global social networking phenomenon, of people who mostly sat at their desks and typed code. The great outdoors - sunshine, rain and a rowing race make fleeting appearances. In fact, the film has most characters seated, most of the time. Instead, thanks to the genius of a screenplay adaptation by Aaron Sorkin of the Ben Mezrich book - The Accidental Billionaires, and David Fincher's (Seven, Fight Club) serene, matter-of-fact vision (direction) of the proceedings, we get a gem of a picture - contemporary, one of the wittiest and funniest films ever, a tongue-in-cheek perception into the world of the so-called nerds.No other movie has keyed into the detained borders of the computer and Internet world with such delicious bite. Go for it!